Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 9 to 12, inclusive, together.

The Government established the high-level task force on Covid-19 vaccination to ensure the requisite oversight, agility and specialist input is available to support the HSE and the Department of Health in the effective, efficient and agile delivery of the Covid-19 vaccination programme.The task force, chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith, has met three times to date, most recently on Monday, 7 December. The agreed terms of reference for the task force are: to support the Department of Health and the HSE to deliver a Covid-19 immunisation programme that meets best practice and provides good governance as a critical public health intervention in the prevention and control of Covid-19; working with the Department of Health and HSE to develop a national Covid-19 vaccination strategy and implementation plan for the safe, effective and efficient procurement, distribution, delivery and recording of Covid-19 vaccines, when approved vaccines are ready to be distributed; to provide a focal point for engagements with sectoral and specialist expertise as may be needed to support the development, implementation and agile iteration of the strategy and plan; and to monitor progress and report to Government, as may be required, on the development and implementation of the strategy and plan.

The task force includes senior representatives from across the Department of Health, the HSE, the Health Products Regulatory Authority, HPRA, the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer, the Office of Government Procurement, IDA Ireland, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Department of the Taoiseach, as well as expertise in the areas of public health, supply chain logistics, cold chain logistics, and programme management. The chair of the senior officials' group on Covid-19 represents my Department on the task force.

When the task force was established in mid-November, significant work was already ongoing on planning for this vaccination programme and governance in place across the HSE and the Department of Health. Under the co-ordination of the task force, this has all been brought together under a single integrated work programme utilising the wide range of relevant and high-level expertise and experience of task force members. The HSE has ultimate responsibility for the delivery of the Covid-19 vaccination programme, through its National Immunisation Office, NIO, which designs and implements all vaccination programmes in Ireland.

The task force has prepared drafts of Ireland’s national Covid-19 vaccination programme strategy and accompanying implementation plan. The Minister for Health brought these to Government this morning and both documents were approved by Government. The strategy document is designed to be a comprehensive framework establishing clear objectives and principles. It identifies the pathways for managing a programme of this scale. The implementation plan is designed to be a living document, in that it needs to be agile, flexible and capable of evolving over time, for example, to accommodate vaccines with differing characteristics or to respond to lessons learned in our local experience or internationally.

It describes the logistical, operational and human resource requirements for Ireland to begin vaccinations in line with Government guidance in early 2021 - and it could be sooner now - assuming the approval of one or more safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines for use. The strategy and implementation plans are being published today on www.gov.ie. The task force is committed to the ongoing oversight and monitoring of the vaccination programme and will update and revise the implementation plan as required to serve the overall goals of the programme.

See this speech in context